


Just came out wrong, that's all

by darkandstormyslash



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Blood and Violence, Blowjobs, Consensual Sex, M/M, M/M Sex, Non-Explicit Sex, Period-Typical Homophobia, brief mention of drug use, brief mention of potential future michael/tommy, brief references to prostitution (but not of any main character), no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 09:31:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13384998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkandstormyslash/pseuds/darkandstormyslash
Summary: From a prompt on tumblr: Alfie breaking up with someone and being a jerk about it, then trying to do it properly. Set in season 4, with associated spoilers.





	Just came out wrong, that's all

There’s no particular need for him to stay in London, but Tommy tends to catch an extra day in the city when he can. It makes sense, somehow, in a twisted bright little portion of his mind. In Birmingham he has Lizzie, lovely safe Lizzie, who’ll forgive him and love him no matter what he does. While in London he has Alfie, crazy and dangerous Alfie, who he’s almost certain gently despises him and is happy to fuck him in a way that Lizzie, bless her, could never do.

He spends the evenings in a bed and breakfast; grotty, dingy little place that it is, run by a woman who doesn’t ask questions and keeps the back door open so Alfie can slip in at nights. When they’ve finished, he puts his clothes back on and takes a taxi to the Marylebone Hotel, where the doorman doesn’t ask why he always arrives well after midnight and faintly limping. He signs in to the Marylebone under the Shelby name in a way that shows up bright and clear in black and white for anyone who might be asking questions about where he stays in London.

They started after Alfie’s first betrayal, but things get a lot wilder after his second. Initially it was just a few quick fumbles, brief awkward blowjobs in the back of the bakery. Now it’s a full blown tryst in a moldy creaking bed, and Tommy finds himself heading down to London far more often than he’s needed.

It’s like the opium pipe; forbidden, dangerous, and bad for his health. But he sucks on it anyway.

He can’t travel anywhere once Luca Changretta puts the Peaky Blinders on lockdown, but he can send a telegraph to Alfie asking him to come up to Small Heath, and find a similarly grotty bed and breakfast for Alfie to stay in. That particular move gets him ploughed into the stuffy mattress until he’s gasping, until his mind breaks down into nothing but bliss and emptiness and a deep aching burn in his guts which is as much to do with him as Alfie. He lays for a long while afterwards, waiting for the world and his head to re-align back into gear, then pushes himself off the bed, standing on trembling legs and pulling on his vest, fumbling around for his underclothes on the side-table.

Which is when the top of Alfie’s cane smacks him in the face.

The carpet isn’t grey, he realises once his eyes refocus sharply in close proximity to it. It holds a swirling pattern of dark red flowers, which only looks grey because of the dirt and dust. He can hear an unhappy rumbling sound from above him, and then a handkerchief drops into his field of vision and a hand awkwardly pats him on one fallen shoulder.

“Nah, nah, no need for that, just came out wrong, that’s all. Didn’t mean for that, get up you silly boy, eh? Come on, I didn’t hit you that hard, get up.”

Tommy feels around in his mouth with his tongue. His teeth are all there, but they’ve sliced open the inside of his cheek, which feels swollen and strange. Slowly, he pushes himself up a few inches off the floor and spits; it comes out in a stained bloody mess.

“Come on, stop it, stop all that, get up, alright? Didn’t mean it like that.”

Tommy rolls over onto his back, looking up at Alfie leaning awkwardly on the side of the bed, “How did you mean it.”

“Just meant to say, right, that it needs to stop.”

Tommy blinks slowly, Alfie is still slightly blurred around the edges. He raises a hand to his cheek and it comes away sticky and wet. “What needs to stop?”

“This. This thing that we do.” Alfie clears his throat, and manages to explain purely via a widening set of eyes exactly what thing he means.

Tommy lets his head drop down against the carpet as the copper-tin taste of his own blood fills his mouth. “That’s why you almost knocked my teeth out? Because you want to stop fucking me?”

“Now don’t start.” Alfie sounds angry and clenches the cane harder. “It went on long enough, didn’t it? It always had to stop, it was wrong, see?”

“Wrong.” the anger comes from somewhere deep within him, and it comes out in a voice that is calm and steady as an empty ploughed field growing nothing but poppies, “Russian soldiers hunted your mother through the snow, Alfie, that was wrong. Ten million men fucking _died_ in a wet ditch in France and that was wrong. I shot Billy Kimber through the head so I could own every racetrack in the north and that was wrong. This isn’t. It’s desperate maybe, stupid definitely, but not wrong.”

Alfie’s cane pokes him in the chest. “It’s wrong, and you know it, Tommy. Against the laws of God and the King, hmm? God, _and_ the King, even if you don’t respect either of them.”

“Of all the reasons I’m going to hell, Alfie Solomons, your cock isn’t one of them.”

Alfie’s silent for a moment, and then reaches a hand down to help him up, “I do believe that Tommy, I really do.”

Tommy pushes himself up, taking the handkerchief and sitting on the side of the bed, dabbing at the red blood that’s now slowed to a thick trickle. “Do you do this to everyone you want to stop seeing?”

“Well usually I just shoot them, Mister Shelby, and usually they don’t need much more, there’s all sorts around those docks of an evening, I’ll tell you.” Alfie is refusing to look apologetic, and Tommy can see the effort it’s taking him to keep up the façade. “But you’re a bit different, Tommy, eh?”

“I’m not a cut-price London rent-boy?”

Alfie makes a noise that might almost be a laugh. “Not for me you aren’t, but I’ve been hearing a bit, Mister Shelby, and I’m not so sure you always open those pretty long legs of yours for the right reasons.”

Tommy gives a snort, pulling himself up into a standing position and hunting around for the rest of his clothes. They’re strewn around the floor where Alfie pulled them away, with a desperate fire and energy that, now he thinks of it, isn’t usual for the man. Alfie prefers to watch him take his own clothes off; standing at the foot of the bed while Tommy slowly strips down to nothing, layer upon layer. “Whatever you’ve been hearing, I’d not listen to whoever’s telling it. What’s brought on this sudden determination of yours to do the right thing, anyway?”

He can feel Alfie’s eyes on him as he pulls his trousers up, “Men have reasons Tommy, why they might suddenly want to look over their own actions and think on them a bit.”

“I’ll miss it.” Tommy says, and means it.

“Nah, don’t be like that, come on Tommy, I’ll give you another slap if you start up like that.” Alfie gives him a disappointed sort of look, “You don’t need to be missing something like this. You’ve got that boy in your office if you want any more of it, alright, once he gets out the fucking hospital and they’ve sewn up any other holes he’s got about him.”

“Michael?” Tommy raises his eyebrows.

“I saw how he looked at you, mate, you’ll be right in there.”

“Polly would kill me.” Tommy’s dressed now, but he doesn’t want to leave. Especially not if this is the last time. In the dim and sickly light of the room Alfie doesn’t look like a dangerous criminal, he looks like a scruffy tramp with a cane, and the world outside seems achingly empty and lonely. “I think eventually Michael would as well.”

“Well, that is a risk we all have to take.” Alfie levers himself off the bed and then, ridiculously, spits on his palm and holds out his hand, “It was nice doing business with you Mister Shelby. I will be in touch concerning our more professional engagements at a later date.”

Tommy takes his hand and shakes it, watching how Alfie leans on the cane, how exhausted the one quick tryst has made him. “Alfie, you don’t have to do this.”

“No, I do. I really do.” Is the only cryptic reply he gets, before Alfie hobbles away, leaving Tommy alone in the room with an ache in his arse, a throbbing in his face and a strange tugging feeling inside him that refuses to go away.

**Author's Note:**

> The way Alfie Solomons approaches normal human interactions in a madly violent and extreme manner will always be a source of amusement and fascination to me. Thanks to captstefanbrandt on tumblr for the prompt.
> 
> The Marylebone is a real hotel, but I didn't particularly bother to research it, so it might be on the wrong side of London :p


End file.
